The present invention relates to a document management method, a document retrieval method, and a document retrieval apparatus, and a storage medium used for executing document management or retrieval.
As for a document retrieval apparatus with document storage means used to register or retrieve a document, there has been an apparatus for retrieving a document on the basis of the keyword attached to the document in registering the document or an apparatus for retrieving a document on the basis of the text or image of the document itself as disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 9-101990 (an information filtering apparatus).
There has also been an apparatus capable of recording the names of the documents referred to and the time when the documents were referred to in editing (creating) a document, as journal information on the edited document, as disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 8-63465 (a reference journal display apparatus).
All of the aforementioned prior-art techniques, however, have the following problem: users cannot retrieve a document based on information regarding the relations and uses of the document, such as when and for what purpose who has created, referred to, modified, or updated the document, and registered it as a new document. This prevents users from retrieving the desired document efficiently with high reliability.
Specifically, with a conventional apparatus for retrieving a document in accordance with the keyword attached in registering the document, because the document is retrieved on the basis of only the keyword, a document to be retrieved is determined uniquely by the keyword, not taking into account retrieval conditions for, for example, the relations of workers who create or refer to the document. Therefore, the desired document may not be retrieved reliably. This makes it impossible to implement a highly reliable document retrieval functionality. Depending on the contents of the keyword and the number of keywords, there are many documents that could match the query. In that case, it is necessary to select the desired one through visual inspection, which requires a lot of time and labor, resulting in an inefficient retrieval work.
Furthermore, in the case of the conventional apparatus disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 9-101990 (an information filtering apparatus), when articles including text and images are delivered, pieces of information with a high degree of similarity can be retrieved and added to the articles. The pieces of information are filtered simply based on the degree of similarity found by a specific algorithm. Accordingly, with this type of apparatus, too, retrieval conditions for, for example, the relations of workers who create or refer to the document are not taken into account at all. This makes it impossible to achieve the function of retrieving the desired document reliably, preventing the document from being retrieved efficiently with high reliability.
Moreover, with the conventional apparatus disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 8-63465 (a reference journal display apparatus), there has been provided journal recording means for monitoring the reference action carried out by reference information display means and recording the monitoring result together with the time. The journal recording means enables users to refer to documents, as the need arises. This makes it possible for users to retrieve the documents which an author referred to while creating a specified document. However, it does not make possible for users to retrieve the created document on the basis of the documents which the author referred to while creating the document. Because it is a one-way retrieval function that enables users to retrieve the reference documents only for the specified document, a document other than the specified document, for example, the document created by creator, cannot be retrieved by the retrieval function, unless the name of the specified document is specified definitely. Accordingly, with this type of apparatus, too, retrieval conditions for the relations of workers who create or refer to the document are not taken into account at all. This makes it impossible to achieve the function of retrieving the desired document reliably, preventing the document from being retrieved efficiently with high reliability.
The aforementioned problems are summarized as follows.
With the conventional techniques, the problem of being unable to retrieve the desired document efficiently with high reliability has arisen because no information can be acquired in document management as to the relations and uses of the document being managed, such as when and for what purpose who has created, referred to, modified, or updated the document, and registered it as a new document.